Some Denver City Council members who fear problems of vagrancy in the city’s core want to make it illegal for people to sleep overnight in the main business sector.

“I want to get them off of our Main Street, and the 16th Street Mall is our Main Street,” said Councilman Charlie Brown. “We have to stand up for our businesses downtown and our women and children who are afraid to go downtown. Are we supposed to just give in?”

Denver in 2005 passed laws to curtail panhandling in downtown Denver, including one that prohibits beggars from sitting or lying down on sidewalks from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.

No city ordinance prohibits sleeping overnight on sidewalks or in other public places that are not in city parks, including the 16th Street Mall.

The state Supreme Court refused a request by the American Civil Liberties Union that it review a Boulder law that bans camping overnight in public places, including parks or under bridges. Denver council members say they will ask the city attorney’s office whether a similar ordinance could be drafted for the downtown business area.

The number of homeless people crowding onto the 16th Street Mall is growing, say city officials, business owners and advocates for the homeless. Convention planners surveyed after visits to Denver say homelessness and safety in the downtown area are among their top complaints, according to Visit Denver, the city’s convention and visitors bureau.

“There’s no question that we have serious concerns over the increased numbers of individuals on the streets,” said Tami Door, president and chief executive of the Downtown Denver Partnership.

Many homeless people stay overnight on the 16th Street Mall because they can’t find beds in shelters and the mall feels safe because it is lighted and populated, said Councilman Albus Brooks, whose district includes the mall.

“This is a nightmare,” Brooks said. “Denver is very sympathetic to the homeless issue, especially during this fiscal time. But that’s not the issue. We have predators, sex offenders, folks selling drugs and taking advantage of people and vagrants all pretending to be these homeless folks.”

Brooks recently went to the mall at midnight to see the issue up close. He found about 180 people setting up to sleep overnight. Many were camping in business doorways.

“I am compassionate, but I also understand that sometimes people need to be dealt with,” he said. “If we don’t do something now, we are going to have a worse spring and summer than we have seen for a long time.”

Brooks has asked to talk with the city attorney’s office to discuss changes to the law.

“I would hope we could do something strong enough to prevent individuals from laying out in front of people’s businesses and prevent this tent city that has the opportunity to become a violent city,” he said.

“We need to put a law in place to prevent that, and provide services for people who need it.”

John Parvensky, president of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, called the effort to beef up laws “a real step backward” for the city, which has been working to end homelessness through its Road Home program.

About 11,000 homeless people in metro Denver were counted during an annual census in January, with about 600 who were “unsheltered,” Parvensky said.

“This is a direct result of the recession, of shelters being closed and lack of mental-health and treatment services that are needed for part of the population,” he said. “It’s not solving homelessness; it’s just criminalizing it.”

Parvensky said laws that would force homeless people from downtown will simply send them elsewhere.

“If the business community is worried about making downtown a better environment for visitors, they ought to use a fraction of their money to build real solutions for the homeless,” he said.

Jeremy P. Meyer was a reporter and editorial writer with The Denver Post until 2016. He worked at a variety of weeklies in Washington state before going to the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin as sports writer and then copy editor. He moved to the Yakima Herald-Republic as a feature writer, then to The Gazette in Colorado Springs as news reporter before landing at The Post. He covered Aurora, the environment, K-12 education, Denver city hall and eventually moved to the editorial page as a writer and columnist.

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